


Akh

by Cyhyr



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Gore, Like, Past Suicide, Torture, flaying, really graphic torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-25 13:39:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18575590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cyhyr/pseuds/Cyhyr
Summary: Akh: the combined spirits of a dead person that has successfully completed its transition to the afterlifeIt had been Night for many years. He had to hold on to Nyx, keep him alive in his mind. The thought of Nyx was all that was keeping him going.Knowing and remembering Nyx was all that kept Cor, Cor.~*~ A continuation of Sobriquet by PocketPrompto





	Akh

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PocketPrompto](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PocketPrompto/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Sobriquet](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18159092) by [PocketPrompto](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PocketPrompto/pseuds/PocketPrompto). 



> Please heed the tags. It's gonna get messy.
> 
> Thank you to Alex for beta-reading and for the lovelies on discord for letting me take my time.
> 
> I claim little to no knowledge of Egyptian names or the parts of the soul beyond what is available on wikipedia.

_khat_

Cor hated the silence. The screech and scratching of daemons and the creek of metal weakening as time went by, the sound of dust settling. His heart beating in his chest, his blood rushing in his head.

For a time his feet wouldn’t reach the ground properly. The rope bit into his wrists and the chain around his neck kept him upright and awake. Ardyn liked to watch his legs give out and let him flail around to get his bearings again. The times when his vision would go spotty and his head would get heavy and full just before he fell unconscious were worse, though not as bad as waking up again minutes later to whorls of scourge shifting around his body holding him upright while his neck burned with each breath.

Today Ardyn laughed as Cor threw up black bile and scourge sludge. It was day three with no food and, shaking and unable to focus, Cor had given in and begged for something, _anything_ . Ardyn bound his wrists to the posts along the staircase to Regis’s _—_ no, Noctis’s throne. The rope was loose enough that he could bend forward a bit, but not enough that he could get any real momentum to break free even if he had the strength to do so. Cor had expected the stuffing, as it tended to come after starvation; he had not expected Ardyn to begin _leaking_ scourge from his hands and spooning the viscous liquid into his mouth.

Before it could settle, Cor threw up. For hours, he knelt beside the throne and was hand-fed scourge. It would be better to have dry-heaved. Scourge was bitter and foul going down but coming back up it had the additional distinct tang of acidity.

Later, when he was thoroughly exhausted and almost to unconsciousness, he begged one more time for Ardyn to please, _please_ give him something to eat.

In what Ardyn would call his “benevolence,” he threw a piece of bread on the floor in front of Cor. He didn’t, however, untie Cor’s hands or even loosen the bonds. Cor had to contort himself over his bent knees and pull against his own body to reach it and pick it up with his mouth.

“The Immortal doesn’t have manners?” Ardyn said.

Cor glared at him, swallowed his bite, and growled, “Thank you.” He went back to eating.

* * *

_ka_

It all seemed louder when Ardyn covered his head with that nasty, disgusting, black sack. With little sound, and no light, Time just seemed to stop. Or maybe. Maybe he was losing time. Losing himself. Losing…

_Nyx._

Nyx meant smiles and happiness and thrill. He meant laughter and warmth and something deeper. An ache that gripped his heart almost like Arden’s shadowy hand, but this ache… Cor wanted this ache to stay.

A rarity, the sack wasn’t on his head today when he had regained consciousness. He hung off to the side of the Throne, suspended from the ceiling by his wrists; his shoulders ceased to hurt, but was no feeling better than pain? The feeling in his hands was gone. His hands.

_His hands holding tight, one at the nape of his neck and the other pulling at two beaded braids while breath and heat and wet and—_

Cor let his head drop. Those memories were just out of reach. He may as well let them go. _Six_ , he’d been with Ardyn for _years_ ; Nyx would have moved on by now, wouldn’t he?

Even so. He had to stay alive. He had to hold on to Nyx.

Ardyn reached into his chest and gripped his heart. Every time Cor let his eyes close and remember his life before being strung up here, Ardyn would kill him. Over and over again.

* * *

_ba_

Cor maneuvered around his body, examining the lacerations and stretched skin over hollow bones. He dared not let himself emote—the chance that Ardyn would kill and revive him again for daring to be human was too great. He brushed his fingers over once-strong arms, now atrophied and elongated. Legs that used to carry him fast and hard across battlefields were now staves of bone barely able to support his meagre weight.

His hand passed through his body.

For a moment he had forgotten that he wasn’t real.

Footsteps echoed through the citadel. Cor’s focus shattered and he blearily opened his eyes and felt the pain of his body once again.

* * *

_shuyet_

Once, Cor woke and couldn’t see. Not that it was so dark, but that he could blink and squint and swing his head around and there was just nothing. And yet.

And yet.

He relaxed. Ardyn had released his wrists from their normal place above his head. They were both comfortable in the fact that Cor was now far too weak to escape. The bonds still hung heavy on his wrists, but during his unconsciousness he’d been laid prone on the floor.

For the first time since the fall of Insomnia, Cor didn’t hurt.

He melted into the floor and let himself relish the rest. It couldn’t last.

* * *

 

_akh_

While Ardyn let the scourge flow freely from his hands over Cor’s face, he shook with the effort to keep his mouth closed and his breath in his lungs. But it burned. Not just the deep unyielding _need_ to take a new breath; the scourge flowing over his face was scalding and acidic. It crept into his eyes and finally forced a scream from his throat, the first in months.

Ardyn laughed and let Cor flail.

_I would never have thought that you would give in to death._

Cor looked around, finding himself in a clean and well-lit throne room.  Regis sat upon the throne, his elbows resting on his knees. He looked the way that Cor remembered him—old and weathered, but with the spark of mischievousness from the days they traveled. He must have passed out from Ardyn’s torture.

A dream.

 _Not a dream, my friend._ Regis didn’t move his mouth yet Cor could hear every word, a whisper on the wind, echoing through the room. _Are you truly ready to move on?_

No one was coming. No one would find him. What else was there but death?

Regis began to fade and Cor made to run to him. But like moving through the sea, his motions were slow and cumbersome. He began to scream—could feel his voice ripping through his throat, yet the sound was nonexistent. Please Regis don’t leave don’t leave not without—

He took in a deep breath and turned his head to throw up scourge and bile.

“Dear Marshal, I almost lost you,” Ardyn tutted. He turned away and grabbed a bucket of dirty water. “Once back from death, perhaps you need a drink?”

Cor sighed, shut his eyes, and held his breath. The water began flowing over his face and the feeling of drowning began anew. If Regis would not take him to death, he must find another way.

* * *

 

_sahu_

“I ask for judgement,” Cor muttered to the stone floor. Ardyn had left him some time ago, chained in such a way that he could not relieve his knees from the firm stone beneath them. His shoulders and arms had lost feeling hours ago. “I’ve never been devout, but neither have I sought intercession from any of You.”

His left eye throbbed and stung. It would be a deep purple, perhaps even black. If he were to open his eyes, the left would be blinded from the swelling.

“I’ve asked for nothing, expected nothing, for the fifty-some years I’ve had. Please, please, heed this prayer now.”

He remembered a figure, small and frail, knelt over a bedside of hand-made quilts with a barely breathing body tucked under them. She had prayed fiercely for an ending to his father’s suffering and was eventually granted it. Then, years later, she had sobbed and cried when she thought her son couldn’t hear or see. Her hands had fumbled with bottle caps and sips of water as she prayed for an end to her own suffering, and was granted it by morning.

The same words fell from his own lips.

“Ifrit, god of fire, I return to you the spark of life. Titan, god of earth, take back the dust from which I was formed. Shiva, goddess of ice, soothe the hearts of those I would leave behind. Bahamut, god of war, accept my surrender. Ramuh, god of nature, I accept your judgement upon my actions. Leviathan, goddess of the seas, wash me away and return me to you.”

Over and over, he muttered these words, until the _tap tap tap_ of Ardyn’s boots began to come closer and the man began to chuckle at Cor’s prayer. He released Cor’s bonds and dragged him up and away.

As his feet stumbled to keep underneath him and the terror of the unknown gripped his heart, Cor grew louder and more frantic.

“As all things return to the sea, Leviathan, return me to you.”

“Ramuh, judge me; Leviathan, embrace me.”

“Ramuh, judge me; Leviathan, kill me!”

Ardyn pushed his head into a bucket of water.

* * *

 

_sechem_

It had been Night for years. Maybe forever. Nyx was either dead or daemon.

Ardyn slid a knife into his arm and lifted the flayed skin up and folded it over. Meaningless words spewed from his mouth like vomit. Cor stared blankly ahead and tried to remember what was important.

Nyx’s laugh. His crooked smile. The safety of his arms.

“Years, Leonis, and no one has even tried to breach your precious citadel.” Ardyn righted his skin and the black gooey scourge seeped into his skin and knitted it back together.

Through blood loss and dehydration and starvation, he was constantly thirsty. It didn’t stop him from having to piss. It’d been so long since he cared. He let it go and relished the warmth on his stone-cold legs, however brief that warmth lasted.

Ardyn tsked. “If only your gods cared, then maybe they would let you stay dead.”

Nyx’s reverence for Ramuh had always been endearing.

The knife moved to his scalp. Would Nyx have recognized him if his hair were gone?

As Ardyn sliced below his hairline and tears welled in Cor’s eyes unbidden, Cor wondered who else even existed anymore.

“If only your gods cared, then maybe the world would be more than the dead and the daemons.”

Cor closed his eyes. The scalping would either kill him for good, or Ardyn would revive him again.

* * *

_ab_

His breath came slowly now. Everything was slow. The Night crept on and on and on and nothing changed. No longer could he count himself among the living, but neither was he dead or daemon. Ardyn called him “curious” and “resilient” as more scourge was fed into his body—mouth, skin, via enema, the method of insertion mattered far less than his inability to become daemon.

Ardyn called him “immortal” or “leonis”. He wondered how much longer he was to hang here before being discarded to finally perish.

There had to be more scourge than blood and tissue and organs inside him. And yet Ardyn forced upon him more and more and more.

Sometimes Ardyn gave him food, chunks of bread and sips of water.

Sometimes Ardyn beat him until he fell asleep from the pain, only to wake him up and begin again.

Sometimes he remembered a smile, a whiff of a storm, rain on his face, and he knew that it meant _Nyx_ but he couldn’t hold onto what _Nyx_ was. Was Nyx one of the gods about which Ardyn would rant? Was Nyx when he was human and happy? When he wasn’t _curious_ or _resilient_? Was Nyx an “immortal” too? A “leonis”?

One time he woke alone and then there came a figure in black, with a kind face and stern mouth. _You must hold on, my friend. Help is coming._

The figure was a wisp, there and gone. But it would come back each time he woke up alone.

_Help is coming, Cor. Be strong._

He fell back asleep with the pervading thought _what is cor?_

* * *

 

_ren_

Stealth was of the utmost importance in this reconnaissance mission, which is why against his better judgement he left Libertus and Gladiolus behind at Hammerhead. Instead, Prompto and Ignis quietly flanked him as they prowled through the old halls of the Citadel.

Nyx kept his knees soft and his feet silent. He was counting on the other two to keep him sane should they meet up with Ardyn, but that wasn’t the point of this mission.

The screams. They were investigating the screams that had been ongoing for years now and then suddenly stopped. It was only when Libertus had come back from Lestallum two days ago and heard the first scream in months echoing from Insomnia. “Nyx, that’s no daemon.”

Prompto pushed open a door Ignis motioned to and swept the room before whispering, “Clear.” Nyx followed Ignis through the door and looked around but the room was particularly dark. Ignis walked confidently over to a desk in the middle of the room and pulled open the middle drawer.

“Prompto, in here.”

A few seconds fumbling around in the dark and Nyx crossed his arms as a quiet, “Got it,” hissed in the room.

Ignis took _whatever it was_ and pocketed it and then the two of them led the way out of the room. Before Prompto could pass him by, Nyx grabbed his arm and said, “You two have an agenda you didn’t clear with me?”

“Just something for Gladio,” Prompto said. “Promise, it’s important, but it was an afterthought Iggy had as we were sleeping before.”

Nyx let him go, and then the scream came again, the second one since they had entered the Citadel. Now that they were closer, it was very clearly not daemonic. Their purpose renewed, they readied their arms and left the room after Ignis. The floor cleared, they took the stairs up one more and then all fell flat on the steps when they heard footsteps and someone speaking.

“We’ll have to revisit these treatments! I have a theory about your resilience, but it would be almost tortuous of me to continue the experiments when you’re barely conscious.”

Nyx growled. _Ardyn_.

They waited until Ignis gave a signal that even he couldn’t hear Ardyn’s footsteps. They then scrambled up as quietly as possible and checked each room in the hallway until they reached the one that was occupied.

“ _C_ _or!_ ” Prompto hissed and ran inside. Ignis followed at a more sedate pace, but helped Prompto begin to cut the bonds that hung the man from the ceiling by a rope and chain collar around his neck. Prompto released the bonds around his wrists and continued to hold him upright. Tiny whorls of blond hair moved with each exhale the man gave against Prompto’s neck.

“Nyx, could use some help here,” Prompto said.

Nyx was frozen. Every time he thought he’d seen Cor since Insomnia’s fall it was a trick or a dream. He couldn’t move from the doorway. His heart couldn’t take it if this was another illusion Ardyn created.

“Captain,” Ignis said, “the Marshal’s bonds would be broken quicker if we had an extra set of hands.”

“C’mon! Before Ardyn comes back!”

Nyx stared ahead as Cor slowly lifted his head and he could see light blue eyes, the same that used to deadpan sass—his way of joking. The same that would crinkle at the edges when he was happy, the only way one could tell he wasn’t angry sometimes. The same blue eyes that would sharpen and focus on Nyx, only Nyx, when he used to tell Cor to kneel and beg.

His face was older, his body frail and broken, and his hair was patchy, but those eyes were the same. Nyx took the four steps needed to bridge the space and took Cor’s full weight in his arms while Ignis and Prompto finished removing bindings and chains. Ignis took off his coat and draped it around Cor’s naked body, and Nyx helped maneuver arms into the sleeves. He nudged Cor’s face up and studied him.

“It’s really you this time, yeah?” he muttered. Cor said nothing, barely blinked. Nyx moved his arms and body so he could better help him walk and move. “I got you, Cor. Let’s get out of here.”

Thankfully, they were able to make it back out of the Citadel with no further encounters. The further they got away from Ardyn, though, the more uneasy Nyx became. It couldn’t be this easy. No _way_ would Ardyn just let them take Cor after having had him captive for almost a decade, assuming of course that he indeed had kept Cor after Insomnia fell.

They got to the base they’d set up in the old subway and it was there that, after having set Cor down on a bunk, Nyx tried to let Cor go and was instead gripped tight and pulled closer.

Ignis and Prompto left the room. Nyx was grateful. Into his chest, he could hear Cor muttering something, and when he lifted Cor’s chin so he could understand, his heart broke.

“Nyx, Nyx, Nyx,” over and over again.

“I’m here, babe. I’m here.”

The chanting of his name faltered. Cor took a few shaky breaths and then whispered, “My name. Please…”

Nyx cradled Cor’s face and let tears fall. “Cor.”

“Again.”

“Cor.”

“ _Again._ ”

Nyx smiled and kissed him. “Cor, Cor, Cor,” he whispered in-between kisses. Together they reminded each other of who they once were.

It was only when the Dawn returned and Cor still stood beside him that the last doubt left Nyx’s heart and he let himself fall into Cor once more.


End file.
